A Rest Day in Taraz

 Alexander texted me at 8am, saying he was on his way over and that we were going to breakfast. I think he has most of the day planned out and I didn’t ask for too many specifics. 

After breakfast I went with his friend Edgar to get a massage. After 3 straight days of riding, I was a like stiff and sore. Edgar is a power lifter and told me he would take me to his regular guy. We went to this person’s apartment, located close to the city center. The space was open and he had a massage table set up. Edgar went first and had his legs massaged. He then instructed the masseuse to go hard on me because I was very tight. It got pretty intense a few times but it loosened me up a lot.

Alexander came by to pick me up and we drove out of the city to a small village nearby called Aisha Bibi. There is an important Kazakh historical site located there - two structures from about 1000 years ago built entirely out of beautifully carved terra cotta stone. Parts of the structures have been restored, while other parts still have the original tiles intact. The story behind the site is a little bit like Romeo and Juliette. It is a mausoleum built by the Emir of Taraz, he was to meet his lover, Aisha Bibi who planned to marry the Emir, against the will of her father. But along the road to Taraz she was bitten by a snake and died before the Emir could reach her.

Alexander said that it is now a fertility site and people come from all over the world to walk around the mausoleum. If you are having trouble conceiving a child, this place will cause you to conceive within a year.

One of the high-rise buildings that I saw in Almaty had the same roof-style as these two structures, although it is made entirely out of glass. I didn’t realize the call-back to this site, but I thought the roofs were very distinctive.

The Aisha-Bibi-themed high rises in Almaty

Afterwards, we returned to Taraz and met up with his son, Dimitri, who is about to enter his 4th year of studying business and entrepreneurship at Suffolk university in Boston. Attending college in the US will help anyone’s English. Dimitri’s was no exception, I haven’t met anyone in Kazakhstan who spoke English at that kind of level. We had lunch together before I was dropped back off at the hotel for the afternoon. 

A Kazakh grocery store. Notably absent from most stores that I have visited is any kind of produce section. 

It was a little cloudy, so I wandered around the city for a bit and checked out some sites. The war memorial in the park across from the hotel, the Russian Orthodox Church and, just down the street, the central mosque, the philharmonic building with a statue of Kenen Azerbayev, an influential musician and songwriter from the 20th century pre-Soviet era. 

Entrance to the park next to the hotel, crossing a canal

Russian Orthodox Church visible from the park 

The central mosque

A view from the park, across the canal

Monument to Kenen

The war memorial consisted of about 8 tanks all in a circle around a row of plaques commemorating fallen soldiers.

I met back up with Alexander and some of his friends for dinner at Dr. Watson’s British Pub. This seemed like the place to be on a Friday night. People dressed up quite a bit to come and play music trivia, a 5-round game with a mix of Russian and international music. The pub was completely full by 8:30 and there were about 25 teams participating. Our team didn’t do too well, we landed somewhere in the middle. I was impressed by some teams’ knowledge of American music both old and new - from The Blur to Dua Lipa, even picking up on some obscure references. Also one of the highlights was when the DJ was giving the answers to the previous round and would turn down the music and everyone would sing along to the song in English - a chorus of thick, Russian/Kazakh accented renditions of James Blunt or Justin Timberlake.

Alexander and Oleg in front of Dr. Watson’s Pub

We tied one on after that and went to Karoake at another bar and closed that place down. They mostly sang Kazakh and Russian classics. I didn’t get home until after 3, which made me brace for my ride in the morning, but I’m sure I’ll get through it.